0:00 Inherently, if you're following some kind of like playbook that has worked in the past, it's highly likely it's not going to work now
0:09 because the pace of change is so fast. >> This is CMO Insider, where you'll get
0:15 candid takes from marketing power players. My name's Lara O'Reilly. I'm a
0:19 senior correspondent at Business Insider. And today, I'm here with
0:23 Charlie from Nothing. Now, Charlie Smith, your chief brand officer at
0:27 Nothing, a tech brand you can pride yourself on your minimalist kind of chic
0:31 design, headphones, smartphones, wearables. And you joined, I think, earlier this year? >> Very recently, yeah. So, I joined at the
0:40 beginning of January after 7 years at Loewe, the Spanish luxury fashion brand
0:46 owned by LVMH. >> And what brought you to Nothing? What
0:49 was What was so compelling? >> I knew after kind of that 7-year stint I
0:53 wanted to do something different. And Nothing just really appealed to me as a
0:58 brand. First off, it's British, and I'm deeply patriotic and love the idea of
1:03 being able to create another British superbrand. I think the last one to
1:06 emerge here was probably Dyson. So, that's very exciting. And then also,
1:10 I think the aesthetic and the values of the company really appealed to me. And I
1:15 kind of um kind of retrofuturism, you know, it reminds me of kind of like '90s Casio and Blade Runner and all of that kind of
1:23 fun stuff. And I think what what Carl's been trying to do is to
1:28 >> Carl >> Carl Pei, sorry. I should say Carl Carl
1:30 Pei, the founder of um Nothing, previously of OnePlus, who, you know,
1:35 he's an incredible person to work with, real visionary, and has built Nothing, I
1:41 think, very much in a community-driven way. Like, we've got this incredibly
1:45 engaged community. It's It's very open in the way that sort of Apple and Sam-
1:50 Samsung are probably actually kind of very closed. And that kind of really
1:52 appealed to me. It felt very modern. >> And And what's the brief then? Why did
1:55 they need to bring in a chief brand officer, you, at this time?
2:00 >> Well, I think um we really want to be the most
2:03 fashionable tech brand there's been for a while, and it's a
2:07 pretty low bar. Um cuz I think most tech tech is deeply
2:12 unfashionable, right? Again, I was I was trying to think about it, and I was
2:16 really going back to like things like the G-Shock watch as being something
2:19 that was like genuinely a trend and genuinely cool. I think obviously Apple
2:23 did it a bit in the late '90s with, you know, the iPod and stuff. That really
2:27 felt like a kind of like cool accessory. In in marketing in general, not just in
2:32 tech, there was this trend in roughly that that same period outside
2:37 of luxury fashion where performance marketing was the new exciting thing, and lots of brands began chasing kind of like conversion and
2:46 efficiency, and kind of really focusing on the data at the expense of brand
2:52 building. And ultimately, I think we can see, if you look at Nike's share price, what that's done for them, that that pivot.
2:58 Whereas, me kind of growing up in in my early career, they were
3:03 the bar in terms of kind of cultural brand marketing, and that's why they
3:08 became so cool. >> But on the flip side, is that because
3:11 there aren't things like mass reach vehicles like TV aren't aren't aren't
3:15 what they were? You can't do that like iconic 30-second spot in the same way.
3:20 >> 100%. And actually, the way that I described it as at Loewe is that
3:25 we had to act like a publisher, like a kind of magazine
3:28 in our own right. So, you know, instead of doing three big
3:33 campaigns a year, we moved to doing like two shoots a week.
3:38 It's a different model of working, but I think you can have the same cultural
3:41 impact that you could before, but it's more of like a drip feed thing.
3:46 >> Yeah. >> And that's why nothing So, we just
3:48 announced Charli XCX as our first global brand ambassador and share shareholder
3:52 in the brand. I I think it's a really big moment for us as a company and I've
3:57 definitely seen that it's kind of the pick up and traction from it has been,
4:01 you know, really strong. >> That's such a get. This is someone at
4:04 the the kind of like the height of their career. Um
4:08 also I imagine a brand ambassador that a Coke or a Dove might might not feel
4:13 comfortable with. Why does Charli XCX and the Nothing brand like work well
4:16 together? >> I think one of the reasons why is that
4:21 it kind of that it was a rallying against the fake
4:24 perfection of social media and that world in a way. I think, you know, she's
4:29 previously described Brat as being like, you know, sort of a strappy top, no bra,
4:35 pack of and a Bic lighter. You know, it's kind of this this rawness and
4:38 this realness um that I think really resonated with her community and this kind of younger audience.
4:45 I think for for Nothing we're kind of railing against the sort of boringness
4:52 that has taken over tech and hardware recently. I remember going to hi-fi
4:57 shops growing up and it was super exciting. There were all of these
5:00 hi-fi stacks with like flashing lights and scrolling text. And you know, my
5:04 hi-fi used to say good morning to me when I turned it on.
5:07 Um I feel like we've lost some of that playfulness and personality. So it kind
5:12 of feels quite powerful to me to have this kind of alignment of
5:17 you know, being a bit kind of countercultural and sort of believing
5:21 that there's kind of an alternate exciting future out there that's maybe
5:25 not the present that we've been living in. >> Mhm. But I guess for all like the the kind of
5:30 the clinical aspects to what they do, you know, these are hugely successful
5:34 companies that are very mass market all over the world. They have huge marketing
5:38 budgets. So how do you kind of cut through a time when, you know, Apple's marketing budget is in the multi-millions so and
5:46 Samsung's is in the billions. >> I think when you're small, you can't
5:51 follow the same playbook as your bigger competitors because it'll just be a drop
5:54 in the ocean. So, you you have to take on guerrilla techniques. And I love this
5:59 example um uh about Bumble, right? When when it first launched is that they went into loads of college campuses and put up
6:06 posters saying, "No Instagram, no Facebook, no Bumble." And so, all of the
6:12 students were like, "Wait, what's Bumble? Why am I allowed to use that?"
6:15 And it was super cheap to do cuz they literally just printed out A4 sheets.
6:18 And then they also um kind of paid student ambassadors to wear
6:23 Bumble merch and turn up late to lectures that everyone turned around and
6:27 looked at them. You know, I think stuff like that is
6:30 is actually really creative and imaginative. And you know, we're
6:33 thinking of things that we can do. So, for example, when we launched our pink
6:37 phone, the the 4A, we actually graffitied our own billboards with uh
6:42 pink spray paint. Um and also our store, you know, with things like I miss Paris
6:47 Hilton. >> >> How do you kind of maintain that element to your marketing as you get bigger?
6:55 You're looking to massively scale up in the US. You're opening new stores.
6:59 Presumably, you you want to expand globally. The idea is to be not just a
7:04 challenger, but hopefully to challenge some of these these bigger tech giants.
7:07 So, how do you maintain what what feels super creative, but but also perhaps
7:13 can't be mass-produced? >> Uh I think if if we really want to
7:16 become the most loved uh tech company for this generation,
7:20 we need to show how we're kind of giving back to culture and actually
7:26 really sort of, you know, leaving it with more than than than when
7:31 we first kind of got involved. And I think some brands
7:34 are very obviously just like sort of hijacking culture or kind of
7:38 taking from it. That's why I think it's really important that take music as an
7:41 example. You know, I really want to in the future be able to create like a
7:45 platform where we can support emerging artists and kind of, you know, show them
7:50 to a a new audience. >> And now a word from our sponsor,
7:53 LinkedIn Ads, to talk about how to cut the bull spend from your marketing
7:56 budget. >> Marketing leaders today are under more pressure than ever to prove real impact and concrete business
8:04 outcomes. I'm joined by Keith Browning, Director of Global Brand
8:08 Marketing at LinkedIn, to learn more. What makes LinkedIn uniquely
8:12 suited to deliver measurable business outcomes, especially in B2B? >> LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the world, so we're built for
8:19 this. We're built for B2B. So that means firstly, being able to find the right
8:23 people. So, you know, you can target by job title or seniority, company, etc.
8:28 But there's also the professional context component as well. So people
8:32 come to LinkedIn to to learn, to evaluate potential solutions, and
8:37 certainly to make buying decisions as well. >> What's your biggest challenge right now as a marketer? As I say, you're you're
8:42 kind of advancing in in the US I mean, I know you exist in the US, but you're
8:47 you're you're moving there in a big way. >> So for for the US, I think
8:52 we we have quite a few plans, and I think Charli XCX being one of them.
8:56 Obviously, she's a British artist, but with, you know, huge cultural relevance
9:01 in the US, and we're also opening stores um was kind of a a store/studio in San
9:07 Francisco, and also another store in New York. I think one of one of the biggest
9:11 challenges not just as a marketer, but for the industry more broadly at the moment is the cost of memory. Um cuz I I'm not
9:20 sure if you're aware, but it's it's increasing exponentially. Um so that's
9:24 like an interesting challenge as we grow to kind of navigate the next 18 months.
9:31 >> And does that become a brand challenge for you? I mean, it sounds like a you
9:34 know, a manufacturing one, but >> I think it's it's going to be a
9:37 challenge over the next 6 months. I think you're going to see most tech
9:41 companies putting their prices up. >> Yeah. >> Um and that's going to be an interesting thing to explain to consumers cuz for a
9:47 very long time we've been used to the price of technology decreasing.
9:49 >> Mhm. >> And it it feels counterintuitive as we're on the cusp of this AI revolution for the price to be going up, not down.
9:56 >> Mhm. And what is your your AI positioning? We've been speaking mostly
10:00 about your kind of hardware products, your your phones and and earbuds and so
10:03 on, but um you are um embracing AI in in your in your OS.
10:09 >> I think our our long-term plan for AI, you know, is is that
10:14 all devices are going to become AI native in the next couple of years and
10:18 that we're going to move from this kind of app world to a more agentic world
10:23 that's more kind of widget-based where essentially, you know, the the interface
10:29 can adapt to your needs and deliver you the relevant information that you
10:34 require. So, everything that we're building now is kind of towards that
10:38 vision. >> And how do you think AI kind of stands
10:41 at the moment sort of as a brand? It feels like there's a bit of an anti-AI
10:45 backlash going on, especially among Gen Z. We're seeing lots of, you know, boos
10:48 at commencement speeches and >> For sure. And I I think, you know,
10:53 we're calling our sort of AI-powered products essential because it's more
10:58 about what they do. It's like this is a better version of dictation. I think a
11:03 lot of these leaders in tech of these AI companies
11:08 are really talking up AGI and the fact that AI is going to take over our jobs
11:14 in order to inflate the the valuation of the company and get more
11:18 funding. But I I strongly believe that that's not the reality that we're heading towards. I think if you look at the industrial
11:25 revolution, there were sort of headlines in the newspapers that machines were
11:29 going to take our jobs. And I I I really believe that we're going to enter a new
11:33 era of creativity because like me for example, I now if I think of an idea, I
11:39 can build it myself. To me, AI at the moment that is incredible tool for
11:44 creativity and productivity and it's really a kind of marketing and a
11:48 branding problem that's creating this very strong backlash towards it. Cuz all
11:54 of these kids by the way who are anti-AI are on ChatGPT the whole time.
12:00 >> So but you so you're a marketer then. How do you how do you solve a problem
12:03 like the AI brand problem right now? >> The focus has to be on the value it can
12:09 deliver, not on it as a as a sort of concept with kind of like robotics and
12:15 kind of all of that stuff, you know. >> Right.
12:17 >> I think it's interesting right if you compare the approach of the US and China. In In China, AI is just being implemented in
12:24 in different categories and different businesses in a very practical way and
12:28 no one's talking up this kind of sort of, you know, artificial intelligence
12:32 kind of robotic future and so people are much more comfortable with it.
12:37 >> How's it changed how how you work and the people that you hire?
12:40 >> Yeah, going back to this point on kind of creativity and productivity, we're
12:45 trying to automate everything that we can so that these businesses usual tasks
12:49 of analytics and optimization and data reporting can all basically be done no
12:55 longer manually but but kind of using AI so that the very talented humans we have
13:00 on the team can spend less time on the reporting and more time on coming up
13:04 with great ideas to move the business forward. So yeah, I sometimes think that
13:08 maybe we've just reached this point of kind of peak work and that actually
13:12 we're going to have more time in the future to come up with ideas and be
13:17 creative. >> And now a word from our sponsor LinkedIn
13:19 Ads to talk about how to cut the bull spend from your marketing budget.
13:23 >> LinkedIn's Cut the Bull Spend campaign urges marketers to rethink how they
13:27 evaluate performance and where their budgets actually drive impact. I'm
13:32 here with Keith Browning, director of global brand marketing at
13:35 LinkedIn, to learn more. How do you define bull spend in practical
13:39 terms? >> So, I'd say bull spend is really wasted
13:42 advertising spend. It's an investment that leads to a great-looking
13:46 dashboard. So, the numbers look good, the arrows are going in the right
13:49 direction, but really it's not actually doing anything to to drive the business
13:52 forward, so it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. >> How does LinkedIn help marketers reduce waste and increase efficiency in real
13:59 terms? >> At LinkedIn, you don't have to pay for
14:02 attention from people who, you know, are never going to buy from you. A mass
14:05 reach works great if you're selling breakfast cereal, not so much if you're
14:09 selling, you know, CRMs. That's really where LinkedIn is different.
14:12 >> There does seem to be a big trend in tech at the moment and um in Silicon
14:16 Valley more more kind of broadly about going direct, right? Like bypassing
14:20 traditional media, traditional reviews maybe if, you know, starting your own
14:25 podcast, starting your own media brand. Is that something that you sort of
14:29 subscribe to as well? >> I don't really see it so much as
14:32 bypassing as more just kind of working across all of the different sort of
14:38 available channels that there are. One of the things that, you know, this is
14:42 even before my time at Nothing, the the team had done this amazing job of acting
14:46 kind of like a new age kind of content creator and publisher. Now, other brands
14:51 are approaching us to work with us as a content creator, which is a really
14:55 >> How does that work? >> Well, because I think they see us as
14:58 experts in being able to create this kind of new age media, you know, for
15:03 YouTube, for social. And so, we can do these kind of brand collaborations where
15:07 we're telling telling different stories. Cuz that's the thing, I think
15:12 we're not just telling product stories on social media, right? We're we're
15:14 telling stories across tech and across culture. And that's really what when I
15:19 say I want us to act like a publisher, I want it to be like a new age media
15:23 version of reading like Wired magazine or something where it's like you have
15:27 your tech section, you have your fashion section, you have your music section.
15:31 And I think that's why or like how you can build a community around the brand
15:35 cuz people know you're not just selling products. You're you're also
15:40 participating in culture and you're as interested as they are in the different
15:44 trends that are emerging and how that all kind of connects together.
15:48 And I think we want to give people that access. We want to let people in and
15:52 make them feel part of the company. >> It like it's a mix between luxury and
15:57 startup, the kind of thing that you're you're doing. Like there's there's like
16:00 the the the grassroots level and then the going up to the you know, the
16:03 incredible like billboards that you have in Shoreditch at the moment with with
16:06 Charli XCX. I'm I'm wondering um how other marketers at bigger brands
16:13 should think about applying some of these playbooks. >> Inherently, if you're following some kind of like playbook
16:20 that has worked in the past, it's highly likely it's not going to work now
16:25 because the pace of change is so fast. To me, that would be like my number one
16:30 piece of advice to marketers out there, which is like
16:33 be incredibly hungry to learn about your customer and where they're
16:39 spending their time and how they're doing it. And then think about how you can then show up in an authentic way in that
16:48 place in a way that's going to really matter to them. >> Mhm.
16:53 What are some of the newer platforms that you're getting excited about? Or
16:57 maybe they don't even have to be new, but but kind of new to the brand.
17:00 >> I I'm I'm really fascinated um I I think it's less of a kind of new
17:05 type of platform, but I'm really fascinated at the moment by
17:09 kind of this whole thing of like clipping networks. Those clips people
17:14 are watching on YouTube, they're watching them on TikTok, they're
17:16 watching them on you know, Instagram reels. So, that's definitely something
17:21 that I'm finding fascinating. I'm also fascinated by the fact that I've met a
17:25 few people now who have created accounts solely using AI.
17:32 And if you follow the logical progression of that thought, right? If
17:35 more and more people do that and more and more social media just becomes
17:40 AI content, will we as humans want to spend less and less time on it?
17:45 And therefore will, you know, Meta and Google and others then try and fight it
17:49 and block it off the platforms cuz they know that actually we as humans want to
17:54 see content from other humans. So, that's I'm just constantly thinking
17:57 about like what's the dynamic and how will trends change? And I think one of
18:01 the reactions to this might be that brands start doing more in-person
18:07 physical events and activations again. Which also is kind of interesting.
18:12 >> That seems to be the the thing that gets cut through now, right? Is people It's
18:16 not whatever the the act of, you know, the the post was on Nike's accounts. It
18:20 was the 10 people taking pictures of it or or taking videos of it on TikTok and
18:25 one of those went viral and that's how it how it reached reached a bigger
18:29 audience. >> Exactly. Like the Arsenal players at 5:00 in the morning outside the Emirates Stadium.
18:34 >> Glad you mentioned that. >> Yeah. >> >> So, I yeah, I I think
18:38 that's why it's incredibly hard to predict virality, but I think it's
18:42 really is really important when you're coming up with ideas to try and think
18:46 like what's something about this that people might want to share with each other and then how can we help kind of like build
18:54 on that idea and amplify it. >> And just to end on Shelley, um really
18:58 interested I I imagine there's a lot of people who'd be interested in working
19:02 with you or a brand like Nothing. What could people do to stand out to make
19:06 sure that that they'll capture your attention? Be it on social media or on a on a resume in an interview. like what are the kind of
19:13 things that stick out to you? >> Well, I think first off,
19:17 you know, you'd be surprised. I've I've hired people from their LinkedIn
19:21 messages before. >> So, you're going to get a deluge now.
19:25 >> >> I I I do think that being proactive and
19:27 reaching out to people is important. Um I've I've had someone write an album as
19:34 their resume and put it on vinyl and send the vinyl.
19:39 And that like >> hire them? >> We we we we first off we we play we played it in the office. We all loved
19:45 it. Uh then basically invited them for an interview. We didn't actually have a
19:49 job opening at the time, but it got an interview, which I think just shows that
19:55 you know, it it's really powerful to to do things like that because it's it's
19:59 showing your, you know, entrepreneurial spirit, your creativity, you know, all
20:04 of those things together. >> That set the bar quite high.
20:08 Okay. >> Yeah. Now everyone's just going to be their CVs into albums. >> Well, you know, at least it's physical
20:14 copy. It's human endeavor. That's that's what we want to hear in this world of
20:17 AI. Charlie, thank you so much for joining us on CMO Insider.
20:21 >> Thank you. I really enjoyed it. >> And if you enjoyed this interview,
20:23 please like and subscribe for more CMO Insider content. You can also find more
20:27 marketing news, analysis, scoops, interviews at businessinsider.com.
